She loosed the strong, white charger, That fed from out her hand,

She mounted, and she turned his head Towards her native land.

Out-out into the darkness

Faster, and still more fast;
The smooth grass flies behind her,
The chestnut wood is past;
She looks up; clouds are heavy:
Why is her steed so slow? -
Scarcely the wind beside them
Can pass them as they go.

"Faster!" she cries, "O faster!"
Eleven the church bells chime:
"O God," she cries, "help Bregenz,
And bring me there in time!"
But louder than bells' ringing,
Or lowing of the kine,
Grows nearer in the midnight
The rushing of the Rhine.

Shall not the roaring waters
Their headlong gallop check?
The steed draws back in terror,
She leans upon his neck

And if to deeds heroic

Should endless fame be paid,
Bregenz does well to honor

The noble Tyrol maid.

Three hundred years are vanished,
And yet upon the hill
An old stone gateway rises,

To do her honor still.

And there, when Bregenz women
Sit spinning in the shade,
They see in quaint old carving
The Charger and the Maid.

And when, to guard old Bregenz,
By gateway, street, and tower,
The warder paces all night long
And calls each passing hour;
"Nine," "ten," "eleven," he cries aloud,
And then (O crown of Fame!)
When midnight pauses in the skies,
He calls the maiden's name!

1. What is the meaning of a legend? 2. How does it differ from an historical fact? 3. What other legends do you know? 4. How does the poet describe the town of Bregenz in the first two stanzas? 5. What is the chief purpose of the poem? 6. Why did the maid leave her own beautiful country for Switzerland? 7. After she had spent a few years there, what happened? 8. How did the maid find out what the Swiss intended to do? 9. What did she do about it? 10. How did she cross the Rhine? 11. What did the inhabitants of Bregenz do when she told them what she had heard? 12. How have the people honored her? 13. What ride in American history resembles this legend?

Expressions for study:

from off their rocky steep golden corn

her blue heart

silence enthroned in heaven

the deep mist of years

the echoes of her mountains

the memory of the past

the smooth grass flies

1. Point out the most striking passages of this poem, and give the reason for your choice. 2. "Figurative language is the result of imagination. The poet imagines that the stars resemble eyes, because they are bright and seem to look at us. In like manner, the snow is regarded as a white robe, the oak is regarded as a monarch. When a writer represents inanimate things as persons possessing life and intelligence, these things are said to be personified." Point out the personified words in this poem. 3. Suppose that you were the Tyrolese maid mentioned in this story-poem, tell in writing what you would have done in this situation.

REVEREND ALBAN BUTLER

Rev. Alban Butler (1700–1773), one of England's great Catholic scholars, was born in Northampton, England. At the age of eight he was sent to Douay College, France. As a pupil and subsequently as a professor, in this seat of learning, Father Butler was unrelenting in his application to study. There it was that he laid the foundation for the great works, Feasts and Fasts, The Lives of the Saints, and Travels through France and Italy, which will remain a lasting monument to his name.

About the year 1746, Father Butler was sent on the English mission, and soon after became chaplain and tutor to the young Duke of Norfolk. When the priests of the Society of Jesus were driven out of France, Father Butler was appointed president of the English College at St. Omer, and filled that position till his death in 1773.

His great work, The Lives of the Saints, was first published in five quarto volumes in 1745, and has since passed through many editions. "It exhibits," says the Encyclopædia Britannica, "great industry and research, with considerable power of expression; and is in all respects the best work of its kind in English literature."

Father Butler had a natural liking for study and research. One of his friends gives a good illustration of this. He said: "Every instant that Father Butler did not dedicate to the government of his college, he employed in study; and when obliged to go abroad he would read as he walked along the streets. I have met him with a book under each arm and a third in his hands."